Justice Thomas Challenges Conventions of Legal History

By |June 17, 2004

In his latest challenge to conventional wisdom, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas this week opined in a Pledge of Allegiance case that the Constitution protected a state’s right to recognize an official church. Almost everyone has assumed that the opposite is true. It is not the first time Thomas has tried to turn the standard thinking on its head when it comes to the Constitution. He has done so by focusing on the document as it was written in 1787, says the Los Angeles Times.

“He likes to say we should look at this afresh. Our law is muddled, and we should rethink it,” Yale Law School professor Akhil Amar said admiringly of Thomas. But the consequences of his “rethinking” could be far-reaching. For example, Thomas has argued that the word “commerce” in the Constitution should be understood as it was in the 18th century: the movement of goods across state lines. Under this view, the states could not erect tariffs or other barriers to the free flow of goods. If his colleagues ever agree, many of today’s workplace laws would be struck down.

TCR AT A GLANCE

The award honors individuals in the media or media-related fields who have advanced national understanding on the 21st century challenges of criminal justice. It will be presented Feb 16, 2017 at a dinner at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York.

It's almost impossible for the bureau to track people like the North Carolina man who fired shots in a Washington, D.C., pizza restaurant in a quest for a phony child sex ring. “There’s not a lot of bandwidth for ... these one-offs.” says former FBI official Ron Hosko.

The New York Times, which tracked every shooting in Chicago, returns to the area where many of them are concentrated. "It's about desperation, decadence, depression and rage,” says the Rev. Marshall E. Hatch Sr., who has given eulogies for at least 12 victims of violence this year.

"Prescription opioid misuse and use of heroin and illicitly manufactured fentanyl are intertwined and deeply troubling problems," says director Tom Frieden of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. The heroin-related death total topped the number of gun homicides by 10 cases.